Nextcloud introduces peer-to-peer backup app for private instances

Nextcloud introduces peer-to-peer backup app for private instances

The app seeks to offer an easy to use, integrated backup feature to improve data safety for home users.

This week Nextcloud announced a backup app for their Nextcloud database platform. The new app aims to help small instances create a recovery on another instance.

After selecting another Nextcloud instance from a friend or family member, the app creates a compressed, encrypted, incremental backup which can be restored. Nextcloud Backup gives users the certainty their data is safe, according to the company.

Many users forego backups due to the complexity involved, Nextcloud believes. The Nextcloud Backup app fills the gap of backing up the data on a private Nextcloud instance ran by a less technical user.

The key distinctive feature of the Backup app is that it stores backups on other Nextcloud instances. These other instances can but do not need to have the Backup app installed. Storing backups in a local folder, perhaps an external hard drive, or any external storage like a FTP, samba or any of the other external storages supported by Nextcloud, is also possible, they say.

A complete backup instance with no hassles and no disruptions

The Backup app stores the entire Nextcloud instance, including its configuration, apps and their data. The app does NOT backup non-local data like remote files and external storages. Users can configure backups to run entirely automatically from the Admin Settings Page.

The backup happens in the background. There is also a very short downtime through maintenance mode when it makes a snapshot. It then compresses the snapshot and splits it into 100MB parts. This process happens in the background and does not require maintenance mode.

To recover data, the admin can use the command line to restore single files or initiate a full restore on the system. When an instance is entirely lost, some information including a encryption key will be needed to restore the data. This key can be copied from the Admin interface or the command line and should be stored in a different location.